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Enlarge ImageRequest to buy this photoDISPATCH FILE PHOTOChampion Middle School on the East Side was only half full last school year, and officials expect the $11 million school’s enrollment to drop further. The school district still plans to keep it open.

In Ohio’s urban districts, it’s not unusual for some schools to teem with students while others
struggle to fill seats.

Experts say forecasts for an ever-changing student population aren’t always going to hit the
bull’s-eye.

Among the eight urban schools that opened this year with funding from the Ohio School Facilities
Commission, Cincinnati’s Silverton Elementary is 11 students over capacity, while Columbus’ Liberty
Elementary is at just 60 percent capacity.

Of 131 new urban school buildings opened since 2000, 28 served more students than the buildings
are designed for and another 39 were crowded last year. Just 11 were under 60 percent capacity. The
analysis did not include 39 new Cleveland schools because officials would not answer questions
about the district’s building program.

Officials with the facilities commission say they look at the district’s overall enrollment,
rather than individual buildings, because building enrollment numbers are so volatile.

“There are going to be two elementaries in one district where the population over at one is very
high and the population over at the other is very low,” commission spokesman Rick Savors said. “And
maybe five years down the road it will reverse.”Some urban districts such as Toledo and Youngstown
are closing buildings or paying to add space to new buildings because of unexpected enrollment
changes.

Columbus, however, has not had to spend additional money on its new schools. The district is in
the middle of the third phase of a seven-phase plan with the facilities commission. The district,
which must ask voters to approve funding before each segment, works with the commission to update
enrollment projections and to assess the facility plan.

That has allowed the district to adapt to changes in the program and student population more
quickly than districts that pursued their construction plans all at once, Columbus schools
spokesman Jeff Warner said. But the schools Columbus has built with money from the facilities
commission follow the pattern of urban schools: Some are crowded; some aren’t.

Among 24 new buildings, four exceeded capacity and nine were crowded last year. Champion Middle
School was only half full, which isn’t a surprise to Columbus officials.

The number of children living on the city’s East Side — where Champion is located — has been
dwindling. Even more students are expected to leave with the closure of the Poindexter Village
subsidized housing project this year.

Still, the district plans to keep the $11 million middle school open, Warner said.“In an urban
school district, population can change,” he said.

Youngstown, one of the first districts to move forward with a facilities commission project in
2000, didn’t think the district would lose as many students as the commission’s enrollment
consultant, Dublin-based DeJong-Healy, had predicted.

They were both wrong: The district lost more.

Youngstown’s original plan called for six new schools and renovations to 10 others to serve
about 10,000 students. But only about 7,700 students enrolled for the 2006-07 school year.

As a result, three schools were removed from the project.

Now, four years after the district completed construction of all its buildings, officials are
set to close two newly constructed buildings with a combined price tag of $19 million because they
were under capacity.

“We’re rightsizing our buildings to the population we have now,” said Harry Evans, who oversees
the district’s operations and business affairs.

The district is trying to attract more students through a science and technology academy and
early college courses. If students return, officials hope to reopen the buildings.

In Toledo, one elementary school was repurposed and two others are getting additions because of
fluctuating enrollment. All three opened in 2009.